Olympics
Tokyo records record virus cases days after Olympics begin
Tokyo reported its highest number of new coronavirus infections on Tuesday, days after the Olympics began.
The Japanese capital reported 2,848 new COVID-19 cases, exceeding the earlier record of 2,520 cases on Jan. 7.
It brings Tokyo’s total to more than 200,000 since the pandemic began last year.
Tokyo is under its fourth state of emergency, which is to continue through the Olympics until just before the Paralympics start in late August.
Also read: 10 new Covid cases reported at Olympic village
Experts have warned that the more contagious delta variant could cause a surge during the Olympics, which started Friday.
Experts noted that cases among younger, unvaccinated people are rising sharply as Japan’s inoculation drive loses steam due to supply uncertainty. Many serious cases involve those in their 50s. They now dominate Tokyo’s nearly 3,000 hospitalized patients and are gradually filling up available beds. Authorities reportedly plan to ask medical institutions to increase their capacity to about 6,000.
Japan’s vaccination drive began late and slowly, but picked up dramatically in May for several weeks as the supply of imported vaccines stabilized and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s government pushed to inoculate more people before the Olympics.
Also read: Tokyo Olympics begin with muted ceremony and empty stadium
The government says 25.5% of Japanese have been fully vaccinated, still way short of the level believed to have any meaningful impact on reducing the risk for the general population.
Still, Japan has kept its cases and deaths much lower than many other countries. Nationwide, it has reported 870,445 cases and 15,129 deaths as of Monday.
Suga’s government has been criticized for what some say is prioritizing the Olympics over the nation’s health. His public support ratings have fallen to around 30% in recent media surveys, and there is little festivity surrounding the Games.
Also read: Pandemic Olympics endured heat, and now a typhoon’s en route
Why the 2020 Medal Project could be Tokyo's most precious legacy
Although the Tokyo Olympics began with a muted ceremony in a near-empty stadium amid anger and disbelief in much of Japan, Games medals made from recycled electronics have finally got a chance to shine.
Japan had turned obsolete electronics into Olympic, and Paralympic medals, one of the most coveted prizes in sport, in an "act of 21st-century alchemy" before the virus-delayed Tokyo Summer Olympics finally opened Friday.
Tokyo 2020 medallists have become the first in the history of the Games to hang medals made from recycled electrical goods around their necks.
Chinese air rifle shooter Qian Yang became the first athlete to step to the podium and have a gold medal placed around her neck after the first events started Saturday. Qian is also the first athlete to receive a gold medal made from recycled electronics.
READ: Pandemic Olympics endured heat, and now a typhoon’s en route
The precious prizes – 5,000 gold, silver and bronze medals – have been crafted from around 80,000 tonnes of small electrical goods – including 6.21 million used phones.
The medals started as just a pile of old tech when the Tokyo 2020 Medal Project sourced small electronic devices from all over Japan, the organisers said.
In a two-year nationwide campaign, Japan extracted enough gold, silver and bronze from old gadgets to make Games medals. Before taking the round glossy shape of an Olympic medal, electrical goods had to be sorted out, dismantled, smelted and refined, according to Tokyo 2020.
Around 90% of Japanese cities, towns, and villages participated in the medal project by setting up donation pick-up sites where thousands of people donated obsolete consumer electronics.
Electronic waste (e-waste) is the fastest-growing part of the world's domestic waste stream. The world generated a record 7.3kg per person of e-waste in 2019, according to the UN.
However, most of this waste never reaches collection centres. Only 20% of discarded electronics are recycled; the rest is either dumped or burned.
The Tokyo 2020 organising committee saw this as an opportunity and invited people to donate their old electronic devices.
The campaign finally produced 32kg of gold, 3,500kg of silver and 2,200kg of bronze from nearly 80,000 tonnes of electronic devices, which were then moulded into glittering Olympic medals.
READ: Prof Yunus gets highest viewership in Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony, says Yunus Centre
"The Tokyo 2020 Medal Project aims towards an innovative future for the world. From April 2017 to March 2019, small electronic devices, including mobile phones were collected to produce the Olympic and Paralympic medals," the organisers said.
Making medals from recycled electronics is not new. In Rio 2016, 30% of the sterling silver to make the gold and silver medals came from recycled materials, including leftover mirrors, old car parts, and X-ray plates.
But Tokyo has elevated it to a different level – the first ever Games where all of the medals that both the Olympians and Paralympians will go away with are made from recycled e-waste, a particularly dangerous concern for the environment.
By going all the way, they have essentially demonstrated that not an ounce of these precious metals have to be extracted from the earth again, in order to serve the Olympics. It is a triumphant demonstration of Japanese society's advanced thinking around matters relating to the environment, as well as their powers of execution.
READ: Tokyo Olympics 2020: Meet the Bangladesh Athletes
Paris and Los Angeles, slated to host the next two Summer Games, and champions of environmentalism in their own right, must already know that as the torch passes to them, it will come with the responsibility to carry forward this most precious legacy of Tokyo 2020.
Pandemic Olympics endured heat, and now a typhoon’s en route
First, the sun. Now: the wind and the rain.
The Tokyo Olympics, delayed by the pandemic and opened under oppressive heat, are due for another hit of nature’s power: a typhoon arriving Tuesday morning that is forecast to disrupt at least some parts of the Games.
“Feels like we’re trying to prepare for bloody everything,” said New Zealand rugby sevens player Andrew Knewstubb.
Don’t worry, Japanese hosts say: In U.S. terms, the incoming weather is just a mid-grade tropical storm. And the surfers at Tsurigasaki beach say Tropical Storm Nepartak could actually improve the competition so long as it doesn’t hit the beach directly.
But archery, rowing and sailing have already adjusted their Tuesday schedules. Tokyo Games spokesman Masa Takaya said there were no other changes expected.
“It is a tropical storm of three grade out of five, so you shouldn’t be too much worried about that, but it is a typhoon in Japan interpretation,” Takaya said. “This is the weakest category, but this is still a typhoon so we should not be too optimistic about the impact of the course.”
On the beach about 90 miles east of Tokyo, the competitors want the change in weather so long as the rain and wind don’t make total landfall. The surfing competition was delayed Monday because of low tide. But if the storm hits as expected, it could deliver waves twice as high as expected.
“As a homeowner I say, ‘Oh no, stay away!’” said Kurt Korte, the official Olympic surfing forecaster. “But as a surfer, ‘OK, you can form if you stay out there,’ Everybody can agree a storm out in the distance is the best.”
Also read: Tokyo Olympics 2020: Meet the Bangladesh Athletes
The Japan Meteorological Agency said Nepartak was headed northwest over the Pacific Ocean east of Japan on Monday with landfall expected Tuesday afternoon. The storm could bring strong winds, up to 5.9 inches (150 millimeters) of rainfall and high waves as it cuts across Japan’s northeastern region.
In advance, organizers made the first major alterations to the Olympic archery schedule because of weather. There was an hour delay at the Beijing Games in 2008. Here, the Tuesday afternoon sessions have been postponed until Wednesday and Thursday.
“We’ve heard that storm could be anything from rain or 80-mph wind,” said American archer Jack Williams.
Added Brady Ellison, his teammate: “Unless there’s lightning, right here, we’ll shoot it. We’ll deal with whatever it’s going to be. Rain just starts to suck in general.”
Beach volleyball plays in everything but lightning. Both the women’s final at the Beijing Games and men’s final at the Rio Games were held in heavy rain.
At Ariake Tennis Park, center court has a retractable roof that can be closed for inclement weather, but play on outer courts would have to be suspended.
Also read: Tokyo Olympics begin with muted ceremony and empty stadium
“They can move every match, I think, if there is really going to be a typhoon with rain,” said Daniil Medvedev, the No. 2 player in the world. “We never know. I guess they will maybe try to move six matches, but it depends how long the matches will be."
Any sort of rain — typhoon, tropical storm, or even light sprinkling — will be a wild swing from the first three days of the Games.
Svetlana Gomboeva collapsed from heatstroke on the first day of archery but recovered to win a silver medal. Top-seeded Novak Djokovic and Medvedev, who who complained his first round match was “some of the worst” heat he’d ever played in, successfully leaned on the International Tennis Federation to give Olympics players extra time during breaks to offset the high temperatures.
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova had resorted to shoving bags of ice up her skirt, and fiddled with a tube blowing cold air next to her seat. At skateboarding, the intense sun turned the park into a furnace, radiating off the light concrete with such blinding effect that skaters complained the heat was softening the rubber joints on their wheel axles and making the boards harder to control.
July and August in Japan are notoriously hot and humid. Japan has faced criticism for not accurately describing the severity and instead, during the bidding process, calling it mild and ideal.
Daytime highs regularly hit 95 degrees (35 Celsius) but have exceeded 104 degrees (40 Celsius) in some places in recent years. The Environment Ministry began issuing heatstroke alerts in July 2020 for the Tokyo areas and in April for the entire nation.
Japan reported 112 deaths from June to September last year, as well as 64,869 people taken to hospitals by ambulance for heat-related issues. Tokyo logged the largest number of heat stroke sufferers at 5,836 during the three-month period.
Australian canoeist Jessica Fox, the gold medal favorite in the kayak slalom, said the wild weather swings have been a disruption to the Olympic event. “It is like a bath,” she said. “It is like paddling in bathwater.”
And the impending typhoon disruption?
“I am a bit concerned about that,” Fox said. “I saw the surfers and they were all excited about the weather, which isn’t ideal for us.”
If Tuesday’s bronze medal softball game is postponed, the Canada team worries it could get stuck in Japan because members had flights the following day.
“We very much hope that the game goes (Tuesday) so that we can get on a plane and go home,” coach Mark Smith said. “As you probably know, with the pandemic, that flights are very hard to come by.”
The weather extremes are just another obstacle Olympic organizers have faced during these beleaguered Games, already delayed a year because of the coronavirus pandemic. Asked on Monday if Tokyo officials feel they can’t catch a break, Takaya said they’ve had to be flexible.
“I mean, you know, we’re supposed to react to any situation, that’s one of our jobs,” he said. “This is absolutely a regular exercise we have to face.”
Olympics Shooting: Baki eliminated from 10-meter Air Rifles
Bangladesh famed shooter Abdullah Hel Baki was eliminated from the qualification round of his favourite Men's 10- meter Air Rifles of the Tokyo Olympics Shooting at the Asaka Shooting Range in the Japanese capital on Sunday.
He finished 41st among the 47 competitors of the event making a worse total score of 619.8.
Read:‘The greatest honor’: Osaka lights Olympic cauldron
Top eight shooters of the event qualified for the final round.
Later, In the event's final round, William Shaner of USA clinched gold medal with Olympics record scoring 251.6, Sheng Lihao of China earned the silver medal scoring 250.9 while Yang Haoran of China, who finished top in qualification round scoring 632.7, took the event's bronze scoring 229.4.
In the six-round 60-shoot qualifying series, Baki scored 102.8 in the first series, 103.4 in the 2nd series, 102.9 in the 3rd series, 103.8 in the 4th series, again 103.8 in the 5th series and 103.1 in the 6th and last series.
Read:Olympics, pandemic and politics: There’s no separating them
Commonwealth Games silver medalist Baki finished 25th among 50 participants in the Men's 10- meter Air Rifles scoring 621.2 in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics' 2016 in Brazil.
Meanwhile, a three-member Bangladesh athletics team due to fly for Japan Sunday afternoon to compete in the ongoing Tokyo Olympics.
Read:Zero risk? Virus cases test Olympic organizers' assurances
The athletics events of the Tokyo Olympics will begin on August 1.
Bangladesh Athletics team comprises team leader Advocate Abdur Rakib Montu, coach Abdullah Hel Kafi and athlete Mohammad Jahir Raihan.
Olympics Archery: Bangladesh eliminated from mixed team event
Bangladesh got eliminated from the first round of recurve mixed team event (mixed doubles) on the 2nd day of the Tokyo Olympics Archery losing to stronger South Korea by straight 0-6 set points on Saturday.
Bangladesh’s celebrated Archer Ruman Shana pairing with talented woman archer Diya Siddique lost to Korean pair An San and Kim Je Deok in the round of 16 at the Yumenoshima Park Archery field in the Japanese capital.
Bangladesh suffered 30-38 defeat in the first set, conceded 33-35 defeat in the 2nd set and eliminated from the event conceding a narrow 38-39 defeat in the 3rd and final set to Korean pair.
South Korean partner finally clinched the event's gold medal beating their Netherlands rivals by 5-3 set points in the event's final on Saturday noon.
The Bangladeshi pair Ruman and Diya earlier played in the mixed team event final of the Archery World Cup Stage 2 held in Lausanne, Switzerland last May.
Earlier on Friday, the two Bangladeshi archers made a total score of 1297 to finish 16th and qualified for the round of 16 of the mixed event as the last team.
Ruman finished 17th among 64 competitors in the ranking round of recurve individual scoring 662 while Diya finished 36th among 64 participants in the ranking round making her career best score of 635.
In the recurve singles on July 27, Ruman will face Tom Hall of Great Britain while Diya will play a Belarus rival.
Archer Ruman directly qualified to compete in the Tokyo Olympics after winning the bronze medal in the recurve men 's singles of the Archery World Championship held in June, 2019.
Diya earned opportunity to complete in the Olympics after getting the wild card.
Tokyo Olympics begin with muted ceremony and empty stadium
Belated and beleaguered, the virus-delayed Tokyo Summer Olympics finally opened Friday night with cascading fireworks and made-for-TV choreography that unfolded in a near-empty stadium, a colorful but strangely subdued ceremony that set a striking tone to match a unique pandemic Games.
As their opening played out, devoid of the usual crowd energy, the Olympics convened amid simmering anger and disbelief in much of the host country, but with hopes from organizers that the excitement of the sports to follow would offset the widespread opposition.
“Today is a moment of hope. Yes, it is very different from what all of us had imagined,” IOC President Thomas Bach said. “But let us cherish this moment because finally we are all here together.”
“This feeling of togetherness — this is the light at the end of the dark tunnel of the pandemic,” Bach declared. Later, Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka received the Olympic flame from a torch relay through the stadium and lit the Olympic cauldron.
Trepidations throughout Japan have threatened for months to drown out the usual packaged glitz of the opening. Inside the stadium after dusk Friday, however, a precisely calibrated ceremony sought to portray that the Games — and their spirit — are going on.
Early in the ceremony, an ethereal blue light bathed the empty seats as loud music muted the shouts of scattered protesters outside calling for the Games to be canceled. A single stage held an octagon shape meant to resemble the country’s fabled Mount Fuji. Later, an orchestral medley of songs from iconic Japanese video games served as the soundtrack for athletes’ entrances.
Mostly masked athletes waved enthusiastically to thousands of empty seats and to a world hungry to watch them compete but surely wondering what to make of it all. Some athletes marched socially distanced, while others clustered in ways utterly contrary to organizers’ hopes. The Czech Republic entered with other countries even though its delegation has had several positive COVID tests since arriving.
“You had to face great challenges on your Olympic journey,” Bach told the athletes. “Today you are making your Olympic dream come true.”
Organizers held a moment of silence for those who had died in the pandemic; as it ticked off and the music paused, the sounds of the protests echoed in the distance.
Protesters’ shouts gave voice to a fundamental question about these Games as Japan, and large parts of the world, reel from the continuing gut punch of a pandemic that is stretching well into its second year, with cases in Tokyo approaching record highs this week: Will the deep, intrinsic human attachment to the spectacle of sporting competition at the highest possible level be enough to salvage these Olympics?
Time and again, previous opening ceremonies have pulled off something that approaches magic. Scandals — bribery in Salt Lake City, censorship and pollution in Beijing, doping in Sochi — fade into the background when the sports begin.
Read: Olympics ceremony uses music from Japanese video games
But with people still falling ill and dying each day from the coronavirus, there’s a particular urgency to the questions about whether the Olympic flame can burn away the fear or provide a measure of catharsis — and even awe — after a year of suffering and uncertainty in Japan and around the world.
“Today, with the world facing great challenges, some are again questioning the power of sport and the value of the Olympic Games,” Seiko Hashimoto, president of the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee, said in a speech. But, she said of the Games’ possibilities, “This is the power of sport. … This is its essence.”
Japanese Emperor Naruhito declared the Games open, with fireworks bursting over the stadium after he spoke.
Outside, hundreds of curious Tokyo residents lined a barricade that separated them from those entering — but just barely: Some of those going in took selfies with the onlookers across the barricades, and there was an excited carnival feeling. Some pedestrians waved enthusiastically to approaching Olympic buses.
The sports have already begun, and some of the focus is turning toward the competition to come.
Can the U.S. women’s soccer team, for instance, even after an early, shocking loss to Sweden, become the first to win an Olympics following a World Cup victory? Can Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama win gold in golf after becoming the first Japanese player to win the Masters? Will Italy’s Simona Quadarella challenge American standout Katie Ledecky in the 800- and 1,500-meter freestyle swimming races?
For now, however, it’s hard to miss how unusual these Games promise to be. The lovely national stadium can seem like an isolated militarized zone, surrounded by huge barricades. Roads around it have been sealed and businesses closed.
Inside, the feeling of sanitized, locked-down quarantine carries over. Fans, who would normally be screaming for their countries and mixing with people from around the world, have been banned, leaving only a carefully screened contingent of journalists, officials, athletes and participants.
Olympics often face opposition, but there’s also usually a pervasive feeling of national pride. Japan’s resentment centers on the belief that it was strong-armed into hosting — forced to pay billions and risk the health of a largely unvaccinated, deeply weary public — so the IOC can collect its billions in media revenue.
“Sometimes people ask why the Olympics exist, and there are at least two answers. One is they are a peerless global showcase of the human spirit as it pertains to sport, and the other is they are a peerless global showcase of the human spirit as it pertains to aristocrats getting luxurious hotel rooms and generous per diems,” Bruce Arthur, a sports columnist for the Toronto Star, wrote recently.
How did we get here? A quick review of the past year and a half seems operatic in its twists and turns.
A once-in-a-century pandemic forces the postponement of the 2020 version of the Games. A fusillade of scandals (sexism and other discrimination and bribery claims, overspending, ineptitude, bullying) unfolds. People in Japan, meanwhile, watch bewildered as an Olympics considered a bad idea by many scientists actually takes shape.
Japanese athletes, freed from onerous travel rules and able to train more normally, may enjoy a nice boost over their rivals in some cases, even without fans. Judo, a sport that Japan is traditionally a powerhouse in, will begin Saturday, giving the host nation a chance for early gold.
The reality, for now, is that the delta variant of the virus is still rising, straining the Japanese medical system in places, and raising fears of an avalanche of cases. Only a little over 20% of the population is fully vaccinated. And there have been near daily reports of positive virus cases within the so-called Olympic bubble that’s meant to separate the Olympic participants from the worried, skeptical Japanese population.
For a night, at least, the glamor and message of hope of the opening ceremonies may distract many global viewers from the surrounding anguish and anger.
“After more than half a century, the Olympic Games have returned to Tokyo,” Hashimoto said. “Now we will do everything in our power to make this Games a source of pride for generations to come.”
Olympics ceremony uses music from Japanese video games
The athletes of the Tokyo Olympics were greeted by a few familiar notes Friday night.
Those video game songs that get stuck in your head.
An orchestral medley of songs from iconic Japanese video games served as the soundtrack for the parade of countries at the opening ceremony. The arrangement included songs from games developed by SEGA, Capcom and Square Enix.
Video game themes are often maligned as annoying earworms, but in Japan, the music that accompanies games is considered an art form.
Video game composers are famous in Japan, and NieR, one of the series featured in the parade, has seen three of its soundtracks appear on Japanese music charts.
Read: Tokyo Olympics begin with muted ceremony and empty stadium
The first song played Friday was “Roto’s Theme” from the Dragon Quest series. Dragon Quest was enormously influential as the first console role-playing game, launching a genre. The series became so popular in Japan that 300 students were arrested for truancy after they left school to purchase Dragon Quest III.
The music of the Final Fantasy series is among the most familiar to western audiences. The parade included the main Final Fantasy theme and “Victory Fanfare,” the song that plays when a player wins an encounter. Both arrangements have been part of the series from its first to its fifteenth installments.
Another well-known song that was featured was “Star Light Zone,” from the original Sonic the Hedgehog. In addition to appearing in the original game, a remixed version appeared in the DS version of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games.
Many of the iconic themes from other Nintendo games, such as Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, weren’t played in the parade. And producers didn’t include many of the shorter jingles from early video games, such as Pac-Man and Asteroids.
Olympics, pandemic and politics: There’s no separating them
Over and over, year after year, the stewards of the Olympics say it: The Games aren’t supposed to be political. But how do you avoid politics when you’re trying to pull off an event of this complexity during a lethal and protracted pandemic?
Consider:
— The Japanese medical community largely opposes these Olympics; the government’s main medical adviser, Dr. Shigeru Omi, has said it’s “abnormal” to hold them during a pandemic.
— Medical journals The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine have raised questions about the risks, with the former criticizing the World Health Organization for not taking a clear stand and the latter saying the IOC’s decision to proceed “is not informed by the best scientific evidence.”
— The second-largest selling newspaper in Japan, the Asahi Shimbun, has called for the Olympics to be canceled. So have other regional newspapers.
— There’s the risk of the Olympics spreading variant strains, particularly after two members of the Ugandan delegation were detected with the delta variant.
Still, they are going ahead; the opening ceremony is Friday. So how have the International Olympic Committee and the Japanese government of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga been able to surmount strong opposition?
Read: WHO head says Olympics virus risk inevitable
At the core: the “host city contract” that gives the IOC sole authority to cancel. If Japan cancels, it would have to compensate the IOC. And there are billions at stake. Japan has officially spent $15.4 billion but government audits suggest it’s twice that much. Japanese advertising giant Dentsu Inc., a key player in landing the corruption-tainted bid in 2013, has raised more than $3 billion from local sponsors.
Estimates suggest a cancellation — highly unlikely at this point, less than 48 hours before the opening — could cost the IOC up to $4 billion in broadcast rights income. Broadcasting and sponsors account for 91% of the IOC income, and American network NBCUniversal provides about 40% of the IOC’s total income.
The Associated Press sought perspectives from inside and outside Japan on the politics of putting this on.
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KOICHI NAKANO, political scientist, Sophia University:
“It’s a bit like a gambler who already has lost too much. Pulling out of it now will only confirm the huge losses made, but carrying on you can still cling to the hope of winning big and taking it all back. (Suga) might as well take the chance and hope for the best by going ahead with it. At least there is some chance that he can claim the games to be a success — just by doing it — and saturating the media with pride and glory might help him turn the negative opinion around.”
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MARK CONRAD, lawyer, Gabelli School of Business, Fordham University:
“The IOC carries a brand that is powerful. Athletes from around the world coming together to compete in peace is a heart-tugging draw. It takes an entertainment event and infuses it with a certain level of piety and awe. Who is against peace? With this “Olympism” as a goal, it has snagged corporate sponsors willing to pay lots of money. Therefore, the IOC has the leverage to exact contract terms very favorable to it and it certainly has done that in this case. The fact that only the IOC can formally decide to pull the plug on the games — even in the case of unforeseeable health events -- is testament to this.”
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HELEN JEFFERSON LENSKYI, sociologist, author, “The Olympic Games: A Critical Approach”:
“The host city contract hands over all the power to the IOC. The Olympic industry has had 120-plus years to win hearts and minds around the globe, with obvious success. In the age of the internet, their PR controls the message and protects the brand 24/7. The IOC is also beyond the reach of any oversight agency, including the governments of host countries. It can violate a country’s human rights protections with immunity, including athletes’ right to access domestic courts of law.”
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AKI TONAMI, political scientist, University of Tsukuba:
“Based on what I am hearing, people within the government have been given their instructions to make the Games happen, and that is their singular focus right now — for better or for worse. Their hope is to get through the Games with as few missteps as possible. Politicians may well be aware of the risk they are taking but hope that once the games begin the Japanese public will persevere ‘for the good of Japan’ and forget how we got there.”
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JOHN HORNE, sociologist, Waseda University, co-author with Garry Whannel of “Understanding the Olympics”:
“The IOC is an elitist club that garners support from other elites and people — and countries — that aspire to joining the elite. From a sports perspective, the IOC represents the custodian of the exclusive medals that athletes in numerous sports aspire to, acts as the chief promoter of the mythology of the healing power of sport, and the organization that most international sports federations and national Olympic committees are reliant on for funding.”
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GILL STEEL, political scientist, Doshisha University:
“Politically, the opposition is so weak, the government can do pretty much anything it wants. Although a disastrous Olympics would damage the LDP’s credibility, the party likely feels safe because a majority of the public doubts the capability of the opposition to govern. The government may be hoping that once the games start, public opinion will turn — at the very least, producing a distraction, and at most, perhaps a rally round the flag effect.”
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ROBERT WHITING, author of several books on Japan including the latest, “Tokyo Junkie”:
“You notice how nobody seems to be in charge. You have all these different entities: the Tokyo organizing committee; the Japanese Olympic Committee; the prime minister’s office; the governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike; the Japan Sports Agency; the Foreign Ministry; the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Suga is asked in the Diet (Japanese parliament) about canceling the games and says it’s not his responsibility. Nobody wants to lose face.”
Read: Zero risk? Virus cases test Olympic organizers' assurances
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DAVID LEHENY, political scientist, Waseda University:
“A lot of the opposition is shallow and movable, though of course that’s contingent on the Olympics actually working out. There will be a lot of people (broadcasters, etc.) invested in trying to make it look like a good show, so I think they’ll have the winds at their back if there’s not an appreciable spike in COVID deaths or any heat-related tragedies for the athletes.”
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RYU HOMMA, author and former advertising agency executive:
“If it turns out there is a surge in coronavirus patients and it becomes a catastrophe, that’s not the responsibility of the IOC. It’s the Japanese government that will be stuck with the responsibility.”
WHO head says Olympics virus risk inevitable
The Latest on the Tokyo Olympics, which are taking place under heavy restrictions after a year’s delay because of the coronavirus pandemic:
The head of the World Health Organization says the Tokyo Olympics should not be judged by how many COVID-19 cases arise because eliminating risk is impossible.
WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told an International Olympic Committee meeting that how infections are handled is what matters most.
Also read: Japan girds for a surreal Olympics, and questions are plenty
“The mark of success is making sure that any cases are identified, isolated, traced and cared for as quickly as possible and onward transmission is interrupted,” he said.
The number of Games-linked COVID-19 cases in Japan this month was 79 on Wednesday, with more international athletes testing positive at home and unable to travel.
Teammates classed as close contacts of infected athletes can continue training and preparing for events under a regime of isolation and extra monitoring.
Host Japan is off to a winning start as the Tokyo Olympics get underway, beating Australia 8-1 Wednesday in softball behind 39-year-old pitcher Yukiko Ueno, who won the 2008 gold medal game against the United States.
Also read: Tokyo's daily COVID-19 cases top 1,000 for 3rd straight day, just a week before Olympics
The game was played in a nearly empty stadium. Fans were barred because of the coronavirus pandemic. Many in Japan have questioned whether the Olympics should take place at all with low levels of vaccination in the nation.
Ueno allowed two hits over 4 1/3 innings and struck out seven, throwing 85 pitches for the win.
Minori Naito and Saki Yamazaki hit two-run homers off loser Kaia Parnaby. Yu Yamamoto, who had three RBIs, added a two-run drive against Tarni Stepto in the fifth that ended the game under a rout rule.
Japan is defending softball gold medalist after upsetting the U.S. in the 2008 final. Softball and baseball were dropped for 2012 and 2016 and restored for these Olympics. They already have been dropped for the 2024 Paris Games but are likely to be restored for 2028 in Los Angeles.
Zero risk? Virus cases test Olympic organizers' assurances
Two South African soccer players became the first athletes inside the Olympic Village to test positive for COVID-19, and other cases connected to the Tokyo Games were also confirmed Sunday, highlighting the herculean task organizers face to keep the virus contained while the world’s biggest sports event plays out.
The positive tests came as some of the 11,000 athletes and thousands more team officials expected from across the globe began arriving, having traveled through a pandemic to get to Tokyo.
Read: Tokyo's daily COVID-19 cases top 1000 for 3rd straight day
They’ll all now live in close quarters in the Olympic Village on Tokyo Bay over the next three weeks.
International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said last week there was “zero” risk of athletes passing on the virus to Japanese or other residents of the village. But that bold statement was already being tested.
The Olympics, which were postponed for a year because of the pandemic, are set to officially open Friday and run until Aug. 8.
The two soccer players and a team video analyst who also tested positive had been moved to “the Tokyo 2020 isolation facility,” the South African Olympic committee said. The rest of the squad members and officials had also been quarantined.
Those positive tests further stoked local fears, with the South African team scheduled to play against host nation Japan in its first game on Thursday.
Read: 6 athletes to represent Bangladesh in Tokyo Olympics
There has already been consistent opposition from the Japanese public to holding the Olympics during the pandemic, with fears that it could become a super-spreader event and cause a spike in infections among Japanese people.
Bach and the IOC have insisted it will be safe and have forged ahead against most medical advice. The IOC says it sees the Games as a chance to foster international solidarity during difficult times, but the IOC would also lose billions of dollars in broadcast rights if the Games were to be canceled completely.
Also Sunday, Team South Africa confirmed the coach of its rugby sevens team also tested positive at a pre-Olympics training camp in the southern Japanese city of Kagoshima. He was also in isolation there and would miss the entire rugby competition, the team said.
And there were other Olympics-related positive tests. Olympic organizers said that another athlete had tested positive, although they were not residing in the Olympic Village. The athlete was not named and only identified as “non-Japanese.”
The first International Olympic Committee official was reported as positive. He recorded a positive test on Saturday when arriving at a Tokyo airport. The IOC confirmed the test and identified him as IOC member Ryu Seung-min of South Korea. He was reportedly being held in isolation, too.
Former distance runner and world championship bronze medalist Tegla Loroupe, the chief of mission of the IOC’s Refugee Olympic Team, tested positive for COVID-19 before the team was to depart its Doha, Qatar, training base for Tokyo, two people with knowledge of her condition told the AP. The team delayed its arrival in Tokyo while Loroupe is expected to stay behind, according to the two people, who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to reveal medical information.
Organizers say that 55 people linked to the Olympics in Japan have reported positive tests since July 1, but that figure does not include athletes or others who may have arrived for training camps but are not yet under the “jurisdiction” of the organizing committee.
The British Olympic Association said six athletes and two staff in the track and field squad are isolating at the team’s pre-Olympic base in Yokohama after being deemed close contacts of a person who tested positive following their flight to Japan. U.S. tennis player Coco Gauff didn’t travel to Japan after testing positive for the coronavirus.
Tokyo reported 1,008 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, the 29th straight day that cases were higher than seven days previously. It was also the fifth straight day with more than 1,000 cases. The Olympics will open under a state of emergency in Tokyo and three neighboring prefectures.
No fans, Japanese or foreign, will be allowed at any of the Olympic sports in Tokyo and the three neighboring prefectures. A few outlying venues may allow a small number of local fans, but it has effectively become a TV-only event.
About 200 protesters gathered Sunday outside Shinjuku station in central Tokyo, waving signs that read “No Olympics.” It was the latest in a series of small protests against the Games in the last few months.
“This is ignoring human rights and our right to life,” protester Karoi Todo told the AP. “Infections are increasing. To do the Olympics is unforgivable.”
Japanese and IOC organizers hope stringent testing protocols, where athletes, team officials and others are tested daily, will mitigate the risks posed by the thousands of foreigners arriving at once. Visiting athletes, officials and media will be in a “soft quarantine” situation and restricted to the Olympic venues, the village and designated hotels, and will be kept away from the Japanese general public. The IOC also says more than 80% of the athletes set to compete in Tokyo will be vaccinated against COVID-19.
But, despite the assurances, the positive tests five days out from the opening ceremony showed the regulations aren’t — and can’t be — foolproof.
The South African team’s chief medical officer said every member of the team had two negative tests before traveling to Japan “as per Tokyo 2020 requirements.” They also tested negative on arrival in Tokyo, Dr. Phatho Zondi said.
“Team officials and management have followed all relevant Olympic Playbook rules, protocols and procedures throughout the pre-Games and Games arrival routines,” the South African Olympic committee said.
Coach Neil Powell and the entire South Africa rugby squad were held at a quarantine facility after arriving in Japan because of a positive COVID test on their flight, Team South Africa said. They were cleared to leave, only for Powell to test positive a few days later.
Powell had been vaccinated against COVID-19 with the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine in South Africa on May 24, team spokesman JJ Harmse told the AP.
South African Olympic and soccer officials didn’t immediately confirm whether the two soccer players and official who tested positive had been vaccinated, although South Africa’s Olympic committee said in May it would offer all its Olympic athletes the J&J vaccine.
The Olympics were effectively over before they began for the two soccer players and Powell as they would have to remain in quarantine for 14 days under Japanese regulations.
The only way the soccer players might be able to play is if their team made the semifinals.